Anxiety on the rise across Britain

The charity Mental Health Foundation (MHF) has turned the spotlight onto anxiety, after discovering that levels are rising across Britain, heraldscotland.com reports.

To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, the MHF unveiled new findings which showed that anxiety levels are high and rising. It claimed that almost one in five people feel anxious a lot or all of the time. Furthermore, around half of Brits claim they feel more anxious now than they ever had done in the past.

Whilst three fifths of people were thought to experience anxiety on a daily basis, only seven per cent said they would go and see their GP as a result.

The main cause was money worries, although it could be any number of issues which cause feelings of anxiety to spiral out of control once they take hold.

In light of the research, a spokesperson for the MHF called for more to be done to raise awareness and understanding of anxiety.

The foundation's chief executive, Jenny Edwards, told huffingtonpost.co.uk: "Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in the UK and it is increasing, yet it remains under-reported, under-diagnosed and under-treated.

"A good ability to cope with anxiety is key to our resilience in the face of whatever life throws at us. However, experiencing it too much or too often means we risk becoming overwhelmed. Anxiety at this level can have a truly distressing and debilitating impact on our physical as well as mental health."